Josiah H. Brown

Practically Idealistic blog

The title for this blog originated with use of the term “practical idealist” in this 1996 opinion piece, which asked: “To what kind of work should a practical idealist aspire?” A century and a half earlier, Emerson, in his 1841 essay Circles, wrote: “There are degrees in idealism. We learn first to play with it academically. . . . Then we see in the heyday of youth and poetry that it may be true, that it is true in gleams and fragments. Then, its countenance waxes stern and grand, and we see that it must be true. It now shows itself ethical and practical.” John Dewey and Mahatma Gandhi embraced practical idealism in the 20th century, as did UN Secretary General U Thant. Al Gore invoked it in a 1998 speech. In the context of this blog, the term is meant to convey idealism tempered but not overwhelmed by realism: a search for the ideal on a path guided by common sense.

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Wednesday, January 20, 2021

More on Mentoring--and YouTube Channel

In addition to the Connecticut Mirror version published earlier, now the New Haven Register among other Hearst Connecticut Media outlets, as well as Medium and the Good Men Project, have run variants of a piece I wrote about mentoring.

(Next week is the annual National Mentoring Summit.)

As noted in the mentoring piece(s) and in the December 25 post below, CASA of Southern Connecticut has a new YouTube channel--please subscribe (and share) if you haven't already done so!

7:44 am est

Monday, January 18, 2021

Martin Luther King Day, Inauguration Week and John Lewis

Always an important holiday of remembrance and rededication to justice, this year Martin Luther King Day falls during Inauguration Week--just months after John Lewis's passing.

8:46 am est

Mentoring

For International Mentoring Day (today) and the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of service tomorrow, as well as for the broader "mentoring month" of January and beyond, I wrote a related piece for the Connecticut Mirror.

11:04 pm est

Friday, January 8, 2021

National Grant for CASA Work

The New Haven Register and New Haven Independent, along with WSHU radio, reported on CASA of Southern Connecticut's new national grant of $75,000.

7:35 am est

Thursday, January 7, 2021

Insurrection at the Capitol, Historical Hatred and Rebellious Impulses

Yesterday’s appalling insurrectionary activities in our nation’s capital—and in the Capitol—unfortunately evoke 2016 reflections published at Medium and in the Connecticut Mirror.

The warped perversion of “patriotism” by racial nationalists explains a lot. Racism—white supremacism—is the key ingredient of a toxic brew that brings U.S. flags, Confederate flags, and authoritarian cult flags together.

7:47 am est

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